U.S. Open's fury preps Enberg for NFL's fireworks

Flipping channels

•Nothing against Enberg and Fouts, both of whom I like and respect, but almost any announcers would be a welcome relief after Monday night and the nonsense of
Mike Greenberg
and
Mike Golic
(and to a lesser extent,
Steve Young
). Too much talking, not enough knowledge, especially on the rule that cost the Raiders a TD in the first half. (Fox's
Brian Billick,
of all people, and
Ian Eagle
of CBS also had problems with the rules Sunday.)

•Another example of how announcers don't affect ratings — Monday's game drew an amazing 36.1 Nielsen rating in San Diego split between ESPN and KFMB Channel 8. That makes it the fourth highest-rated Chargers regular-season telecast here in the past decade.

•Shame on CBS last week for not cutting back to the studio to show the winning TD in the Broncos-Bengals game. It would have taken 15 seconds.

•No excuse, either, for Fox going to a commercial just before the officials brought out the chains to measure on fourth-and-1 in Giants-Redskins. They couldn't wait?

•Sure was missing
Al Michaels
when Baltimore scored late to beat Kansas City by 14 points. You know he wouldn't have passed on the chance to note the point spread was 13.

•On ESPN's “Outside the Lines” at 6 a.m. Sunday, North County resident
Tom Friend
has the story of
T.C. McCartney,
the son of the late
Sal Aunese
and the daughter of Colorado coach
Bill McCartney.
Twenty years after Aunese's death, T.C. is the backup quarterback at LSU, where his coach is
Les Miles,
who recruited Aunese from Vista High to Colorado.

•We hinted at this two weeks ago, but the official announcement is coming next week — ESPN Radio will be simulcast on 800-AM and 98.9-FM, beginning Oct. 5. Great news, particularly with baseball's postseason starting the next day.